I detest beginnings; they are abysses where monsters lurk, roaming, smacking their lips in thought of a deliciously unwary traveler.

Of course, each beginning needs a bridge, to connect all seekers to the beginning's other side, the place they and I have not seen yet.

And the material? Waiting to be excavated, so many layers, of feathers and songs and photographs, lying close to the bone.

. . .

Sometimes I am too kin to butterflies, flitting from one flower, friend, idea or glass of wine to the next. And we all know that butterflies cannot build bridges except maybe in dreams.

. . .

In a magazine, I saw a photo of a garden maze whose creator was inspired by the legend of the Minotaur. The maze was neatly manicured, very lush, and not at all labyrinthine, for it was dazzingly symmetrical, its architecture organized for an expressly aesthetic purpose. You walk the path not to contemplate but to admire its owner's luxury of neatness.

Some novels read like this maze; they have been clipped, at their inception, of wildness. When so rigidly guided, a disciplined wanderer might become bored. For you could always escape such a maze or novel. Look over the walls of such a place and you would see, from where you stood, all corridors, all exits. Among these crooks and corners awaits no mystery, no Minotaur, melancholy and lonely within, no horns of the beast for the path-taker to gropingly discover.